Ugand-o-ween

It's Halloween time, but you wouldn't know it here in Uganda.  The leaves haven't turned, the weather is still a balmy 80 degrees, and retail establishments aren't littered with paper skeletons, plastic pumpkins, and strung-out cotton resembling spider webs.  And the worst part?  Candy is not on prominent display in the grocery stores, because candy is relatively hard to come by.  If any of our good readers would like to send a care package next year, a 55-gallon drum of candy corn and assorted chocolate bars would be greatly appreciated by the American expat community.

No sign of Halloween, but Christmas has arrived in Uganda - photo taken October 13th. 

I don't think that words can explain exactly how foreign the concept of Halloween is to most Ugandans.  In a country where Archbishops find it necessary to warn against the use of witchcraft to pass exams, I think Ugandans believe we Americans are the odd ones who don costumes and attend parties dressed as ghosts, goblins, monsters, super heroes, pop culture icons, and childrens' toys (our costume - will discuss shortly).  We dress up our children and then follow them around so they can "beg" for candy.  All strange and mildly insulting concepts in the developing world.

Most of our belongings still haven't arrived from the U.S., so we had limited resources in developing our costumes.  So the brain trust of Laura and Tepper sat down and searched the Internet for costumes using the one resource we aren't lacking - empty diaper boxes.  After much searching - and I will say that year will be the only year where Tepper gets to choose the family costumes - here is the result:

The Lego family that "sticks" together - mostly because the paint was still slightly wet

Yes, the powers that be decided that we were Legos. It was by far the most unique costume at the Embassy party, albeit impractical.  Not only did Laura and I have a hard time corralling the kids with limited arm movement, Tepper had to ask for help putting the candy into her pumpkin, because she couldn't bring her hands together.  "Mommy, can you put the pumpkin in my other hand?"  "Mommy, can you put my candy in the pumpkin?"  Then there was the Loony Toons-esque moment when she fell down, suspended in the air by the cups, all limbs off the ground. Fortunately for her, our parental instincts kicked in and we helped her up instead of reaching for our cameras.